Bringing Life To Leisure Time

LEISURE TIME

Cribbage Club

October 4, 1991|By Jim Abbott of The Sentinel Staff

Want to talk - or play - cribbage in Central Florida? The person to see is Jim Arblaster.

When it comes to cribbage credentials, Arblaster, 72, has a list as long as your arm. After all, the guy has been at the game for 55 years - since passing cold winter days playing with his father as a teen-ager in Massachusetts.

In 1979, Arblaster and Joseph Wergin founded the American Cribbage Congress, an organization that would become the game's national governing arm, and Arblaster also is a founding member of the Greater Orlando Cribbage Club, which meets twice a month at the Elks BPOE Lodge No. 1079 in Orlando.

Besides that, Arblaster has a way cool license plate.

There it is, fastened on the back of his gold Buick LeSabre, a Florida vanity tag emblazoned with 29 CRIB (the 29 standing for the game's most sought-after hand). To say that he takes the game seriously is an understatement.

''The odds are 216,580-to-1 on the 29 hand,'' Arblaster said matter-of-factly at a recent club meeting. When it comes to his favorite game, Arblaster is a walking encyclopedia.

''Do you know who invented the game?'' he asked enthusiastically. ''It was John Suckling, a British poet who died in 1645. He was an avid gamester, and a lot of the rules he used are still in effect.''

For the unenlightened, cribbage is a two-handed card game (the most exciting two-handed card game, Arblaster would add) in which players try to score 121 points by amassing pairs, runs and other card combinations. Players keep track of the score by advancing plastic pegs around a small wooden board. The action moves quickly - with most games taking less than 15 minutes. Arblaster said that winning is 40 percent luck and 60 percent skill.

Although he has played other card games, Arblaster has a higher regard for cribbage - and for the people who play it.

''I think cribbage players are the finest people in the world,'' he said. ''They know no matter how good you are, you can't win 'em all.''